


Dancing in the Wasteland

by Shadsie



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Big Frigging Guns, Dancing among destruction, Dramatic backlighting, F/M, Gen, Hero-wind, Pining, Robot-death, Robots, War, season 4, season 4 based
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:07:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22875259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadsie/pseuds/Shadsie
Summary: He had yet to meet her in battle and was determined to remain in the field until he saw her again.She crested a hill, her hair lifted by the wind.  He was raining down destruction with his new weapon.  He would show her his strength.A story in which Hordak engages the traitorous Entrapta in combat.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 98
Collections: Shera





	Dancing in the Wasteland

**Dancing in the Wasteland**  
  
  
  
Hordak had picked out every Princess in the Princess Alliance by memory and had seen them somewhere in the war-zones recently. He’d gone over the footage salvaged from robots that had met their collective end by She-Ra. The flower-one had engaged his troops. Even the ice-child took the field, which disturbed him for some reason. It wasn’t that he had any qualms about hurting the spawn of his enemies; it is just that his own troops were kept in training until at least puberty before they saw the field – having not-fully-grown specimens in combat seemed… less than optimal.   
  
There was one Princess he had yet to see – the traitor. Her entire infiltration-operation has seemed strange to him in hindsight. She’d had his trust, so why did she not attempt an assassination? Hordak grunted and closed his eyes whenever he thought about all of the times he’d shared some of her tiny snacks at her insistence as well as the time she’d tried to feed him soup out of little cups. She could have slipped a poison into any of those and had not. In fact, she had constructed him a new set of power-armor and it worked beautifully. It had a single weakness in that it was powered by a central-source, a small First Ones data-crystal. Catra’s recent actions had shown it to be quite a liability, but Entrapta could have made the armor to be faulty or even deadly so easily.   
  
His mind turned to what she must be telling the Rebellion about him – his weaknesses. It chilled him to the bone. Hordak concluded that Entrapta must have been friendly and helpful to him for the science alone. She’d gotten all of the knowledge she’d wanted from him and then abandoned him when his usefulness to her had ceased. It was a story ever-told. He was defective, unworthy once again. He had let his guard down, let her in. Perhaps it was because he had yelled at her? Maybe her decision to betray him had been an impulse rather than a plan? Either way, he had to be mindful of it now – always wary of what the Rebellion was going to do next. He’d been making note of their improving technology.   
  
He was on the front lines every day now. The personal laser-cannon mounted upon the right arm of his armor was an absolute dream. It seemed that he had gotten use out of Entrapta, too.   
  
He closed his eyes and was lost in his thoughts - The latest Etherian settlement to fall smelled of destruction. Dust. Smoke. Fear. Hordak breathed it all in. He’d failed to realize how much he’d missed this. In any case, he’d be on the march until he found _her_. He simply had to see her again.   
  
What was that? A shadow appeared upon the horizon, cresting a hill. Round lights dotted multiple silhouettes. Hordak blinked. Out of the dust _she_ appeared! There she was, purple twin-tails held high, mounted upon her beloved Emily-robot. She was surrounded by a metal army – some built upon the Horde-tripod drone model, with modifications, but many more in humanoid shapes. Their optics glowed – some purple, some red. They carried laser-rifles or had arms modified into blades. Some of them looked like they had weapons in their chests.   
  
Entrapta’s hair flowed behind her in the wind. Light from fire behind her caught her form, glistening off the silken strands, her skin and Emily’s chassis.   
  
“So, we finally meet…Entrapta,” Hordak addressed her.   
  
“Oh, yeah!” Entrapta said cheerily. I am here to stop you!”  
  
“And I look forward to destroying you!” He held his cannon aloft. “Behold what I have created in your absence! Is it not impressive?”   
  
“That is a really big gun!”  
  
“Indeed, it is! Answer me this, Entrapta, before I obliterate you. Why did you return to the Rebellion over me? Did I not offer you access to the finest technology upon this pitiful planet? Did I not offer you the stars?”   
  
“You did! You did! But I’m still studying the planet! I can’t let it be conquered yet! The Princesses say I’ve gotta stop you, so here’s my vast robot-army! Oooh, this is gonna be fun!”   
  
Hordak smiled in spite of himself. Watching her mounted like a high-tech cavalry-unit, her hair lilting in the breeze and hearing her cry out that she was enthusiastic for combat was definitely doing something to him. He would show her the price of betraying him!  
  
The robots poured over the hill. They ran upon steel feet and rolled upon wheels and treads. They fanned out and engaged armored soldiers behind him, but it seemed that the vast majority were targeted directly toward him.   
  
He powered up his arm-canon and shot. He whirled and danced as scrap-remains fell around him. Steel and copper fell like rain as he spun and fired, jumping deftly among the ruins.   
  
Entrapta wailed as her bots met their demise. Hordak laughed. “Don’t you see what I am capable of now?”   
  
He dodged laser-fire from Emily.   
  
Hordak sighted fleeing civilians. He grinned.   
  
“Follow the guide-bots!” the Princess screamed to her fellow Etherians, “Go, go, go!”   
  
A terrified young man ran toward her and attempted to shield himself beyond Emily. Hordak hit him directly. His head and upper-torso became ashes in an instant. The embers flickered as they blew into Entrapta’s face. She coughed, wiped the remains off her cheek and fixed Hordak with a deadly glare.   
  
“You’ll pay for that!” she yelled to him.   
  
“Oh, you’ve gone soft, Entrapta! Since when did the creator of the Black Garnet Storm care about inconsequential lives?!”   
  
“Since I’ve been with Adora!”   
  
“Return to me and we’ll touch the stars!”   
  
Another wave of robots fell upon the warlord. One of the blade-wielding bots got through and Hordak engaged in hand-to-hand combat. He snarled as he grabbed it by the neck, threw it to the ground and crushed its head beneath his power-armor’s right boot.   
  
This was delicious! She was giving him her full force! Every robot in Dryl must have been at this battle! He whirled and dodged, shot and clawed and destroyed.   
  
He ran up the hill where she remained. Emily tried to trundle out of the way, but he made a direct hit to her central processor through her optic. Entrapta screamed in grief as the drone fell and sparked with errant electricity. As Emily’s remains rolled, Entrapta fell off of her and tumbled to the ground. She caught herself on her hair, but as soon as she rose, she was face to cannon with Hordak.   
  
He smiled and gestured to the field of scrap with his other hand.   
  
“I am afraid, Princess, that your assault was imperfect. Any last words?”   
  
To Hordak’s utter surprise, Entrapta extended one tail of her hair and rested it upon his shoulder. 

“Imperfection is beautiful.”   
  
Hordak stood staring at her. She was smiling at him, her eyes shining, seemingly completely unafraid of death. He grunted, charging up energy. Just then, the wind blew her hair away from his person and out behind her.   
  
She was heroic, gorgeous.   
  
He would preserve this image of her.   
  
“Traitor.” 

  
  
______________________________________  
  


Hordak grunted as footsteps upon metal awakened him from his fantasy. He opened his eyes. He’d been pointing his cannon, uncharged, all around his sanctum, reveling in its sleek design and in what it had given him of late.   
  
His one disappointment was that he hadn’t met Entrapta in combat. He’d been given no chance to convince her to return, nor to destroy her by his own hand. It did not mean that he could not pretend, to engage in wishful thinking.   
  
He turned around to meet and overdramatic false-form of She-Ra. The shape-shifter. They’d better be here for an important reason – with some information about the war worth the rude shattering of his dreams. 


End file.
